Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Dear Nurse Practitioner From the Previous Letter

When I walk out of the doctor's office after you saw me for a whole five minutes, and I am told I can just leave, am I wrong to assume that I am not being charged?  It was an extremely brief visit and I never even saw a doctor.  It is not so shocking for me to think that maybe for once I had some luck at the doctor's office.

Imagine my surprise when I received a $60.00 bill in the mail today for that 5 minute visit.  Let me put this another way: that translates to $720 an hour.  I do not remember getting a reach around at any point.  Maybe I blacked out because of the pain from my ulcers and you serviced me, but I do not remember this.  I am certain, however, that we probably never kissed because prostitutes that charge as much as you do don't let the client kiss them.

I would love to repeat that you are not a doctor.  Apparently your practice does not adjust the rate according to whether I see someone who actually went to medical school or not.  I refuse to believe that I should be charged this much for you looking into my mouth and then checking my ears. For that type of money I should have gotten those things, had my face painted, and had you compose and sing me a funny song on the spot.

So, basically, congratulations to you.  I now am making a solid pledge that no matter what is wrong with me, I will never go back to the doctor.  I will wait it out and hope it gets better, like I should have done here. I cannot trust that I will get fair treatment from the health care industry, because doctors make up diseases for me to have, and apparently nurses simply screw me without buying me dinner first.  And you were a male nurse, so it wasn't the good Vegas kind of screwing.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Dear Primary Care Provider

It is true that I have a rocky history with doctors.  None of that is my fault.  You people* like to play "Let's try to make Greg dead" a little too often for my taste.  Therefore, I do not like you very much.
*(This does not include the awesome Lisa Y. She is a great doctor. I also give blanket immunity to any of my other friends who are doctors, because they have never treated me)

A brief history of the ways doctors have strived to ruin my life-

1) Age 12- A bright eyed and bushytailed Greg shows up to get a physical so that he can join his middle school soccer team.  He has played little league for years, as well as gone to soccer and basketball camps.  This should be a cakewalk.  Things progress well until the doctor listens to little** Greg's heart and tells him there is an irregularity. For the next five years he has to see a heart specialist, and doctors have him so scared that he could drop dead from the slightest exertion that he does not exercise and balloons into a gooey lard monster that is shunned from every social circle.  He lives in the shadows, subsisting on french fries and whole hams basted in his own tears of self loathing. 
** ("Little" is a subjective term. Between the ages of 11 and 12 I grew a full foot and was almost 6 feet tall. I ate constantly to quell my out of control metabolism, and I shaved with a rusty hatchet that I stole off of a lumberjack I fought and killed in a carnival funhouse.)

2) Age 17-  Greg is told that it was all a big joke*** and that he has no heart problem.
*** (An exaggeration. The doctors have never admitted that it was all a big farce. The heart problem, in medical terms, "magically went away". )

3) Age 26- Against his better judgement, Greg goes to his primary care provider, i.e. YOU, to have what he suspects is a pinched nerve in his back taken care of.  The doctor, YOU, who ot should be stressed HAS MET GREG SEVERAL TIMES, states in not so many words that he has just noticed that Greg is ugly and that he believes that Greg has acromegaly, which makes him look like a caveman.  This means ugly Greg has a brain tumor.  You order many painful tests, and Greg is very upset for weeks while he waits for the results.  When you finally call Greg back, you laugh and say it was a big joke, and there is no tumor, but that Greg does have diabetes, so suck it bitch.  To make matters worse, the pinched nerve has never been fixed.

Flash forward to Thursday.  My throat hurts very badly.  I cannot eat, and it is agony even to drink water.  This has happened twice before.  Once, in college, I had strep throat which I left untreated for two weeks because I refused to see a doctor.  It was left alone until I kept waking himself up screaming at night from the pain.  The other time I had an ulcer towards the back of my throat. 

So, I woke up Thursday and could no longer bear the pain.  I called your office, Mr. Primary Care Provider.  Surprise, you would not see me.  I have never been able to see you without six month's notice.  Luckily for me, the nurse practitioner agreed to see me.  I was in the office for three minutes, he told me I had two ulcers at the top of my throat, and that the next few days were going to suck for me.  He then let me leave and did not charge me.  At no point in the meeting did he invent some illness that I did not have.  He never pointed at me and laughed, or made me take my clothes off slowly while he leered at me.  He was also pleasant to talk to and seemed to care about what was wrong with me. 

In other words, he was absolutely nothing like you, and that made me invite him out for drinks.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Dear Ukulele

Why do you have to be so small?  I like you very much, but you would make me look foolish if I were to play you.  I am 6'9".  The largest ukulele is usually 19" for a baritone.  That is a 62 inch difference, or a whole Mugsy Bogues.  It would be like the time I tried to use the urinal at the elementary school.  It ends with me making a terrible mess and children laughing at me, and guess what?  You can't take revenge on kids, especially if they aren't yours.  Things go south real quick when you try that. 

I want to play you very badly, but I remember when this happened before.  I bought a mandolin for my 20th birthday.  My stupid fat fingers took up two frets at a time.  I only played sad, tuneless songs and had to sell it a month later because as usual, Lenny was too big to pet the puppies.  And the schoolchildren laughed and laughed. 

So now I have to watch videos of other people playing you on Youtube.  That can be nice when a pretty woman with a nice voice is playing a song I like.  In fact, that is something I really like to watch.  However, other "normal" sized people that "never broke a chair by sitting in it" and don't "hit their head on car ceilings" or "door jambs when the walk through a door" get to play you, and they don't do a good job.  And they don't sound awesome when they sing like I do.  It's like you filmed yourself banging some dude that's not as cool as me, and you are making me watch the video.  I didn't like that when Kat Dennings did that to me, and I like it even less now. 

Someday, maybe we can be together in a world where people won't judge us for our differences.  Until then, please stop being such a whore and letting other men run their fingers all over you.  I die a little inside every time it happens.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Dear Local Bar

Even though it seems crazy, not everyone comes to your bar to get drunk.  I didn't come here tonight to listen to your house band either, but they weren't bad, so they will be spared any indignities.  No, some people come to your bar to hang out with their friends that want to drink.  This, regardless of what you seem to believe, is a common occurrence. 

There is also something called a "Designated Driver".  This person chooses not to drink so that they can safely drive others away from your little slice of mediocrity.  I was also doing this, since again, I don't drink alcohol.  So, you may ask, why am I mad at you.  There are two reasons for this. 

The first reason is the reason that immediately affects me.  I ordered a diet coke.  You in turn charged me for this diet coke.  Many bars would not charge me for the $0.13 worth of seltzer water and syrup, since I was doing something that is good for everyone.  Maybe you are just giving away water for free to designated drivers.  I bet you are charging for that too.

The injustice is charging me $2.50 for what was the equivalent for a can of soda.  This alone makes those in charge, if not the bartender, scumbags.  Fountain soda costs so little that it appalls me that you would charge me for one glass what I could buy five to six cans for elsewhere. 

What makes me even angrier is that your reasoning for this seems to be that designated drivers take away money from your shuttle driver.  Yeah, your crap bar has a van that will pick people up and bring them to the bar, then take them home when they are ready.  The reason this is a terrible thing, and the second reason that I am furious with you, is that your shuttle driver is sitting at a table drinking beers. 

That's right.  Your shuttle driver is drinking while it is snowing outside, and no one running your bar has stopped him.  In fact, I will bet he didn't serve himself that beer, so that means that your bartender served a man she knows is driving for your company.

You are genuinely horrible people, and I don't care if this post isn't even that funny, because you can go to hell.  I have half a mind to give out the name of your bar, and honestly, I will sit in a booth and take pictures of this asshole drinking then taking people in his van if I hear this happens again.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Dear Television Lineup People

What has been done today will never be forgotten, not now or in the future when our kitten overlords look through our annuls of history.  I am fairly certain this constitutes a war crime.  If it doesn't I am not sure I want to be a citizen of this country anymore.

Scanning through network television, I see reruns of sitcoms.  Must see television indeed.  NBC, you won't even show Community anymore, but I have a feeling that will be fodder for a future letter.  Handle that one carefully, because I will most likely rub that one all over a leprous street urchin. 

Cable tv providers, you have sickened me even further.  I see a rerun of NCIS, SyFy is showing frigging FaceOff for the love of Nick Cage's stilted acting and horrible wigs, and Comedy Central is showing Russell Simmons Presents the Ruckus.  I don't know what "the ruckus" is, but if Russell Simmons is giving it to me, I do not want it.  I not only will not take it, but I disavow that it has ever existed, and will substitute it with reruns of "Perfect Strangers." 

It is Groundhog Day.  Can you useless dregs of creativity possibly think that maybe there is something more fitting that you could be showing?  Possibly the movie ranked 32nd best comedy of all time?  A movie that is a delightful mix of dark comedy, romantic comedy, and existentialism?  A movie that not only represents the last instance of at least two Ghostbusters on the screen at the same time, but also may be the cause of there being no third Ghostbusters thanks to the falling out of Bill Murray and Harold Ramis during filming?  (I hear Bill Murray took the last porkchop from craft services and Ramis was inconsolable until he was brought a live gorilla to fight and eat) 

I am of course speaking of the movie "Groundhog Day."  Seriously, this is a layup for you morons.  You were handed this on a silver platter.  It is an instant filler for two and a half hours of lineup, yet you chose to show me the equivalent of tv herpes instead.  In olden times, I would have every right to slaughter all of your cattle and take your land for my own because of this injustice.  Instead, I made some horrific noises that made my cat puff up and hide, and I may or may not have broken a toe doing "The Dance of Infinite Sorrow."  It's eerily similar to the dance Peppermint Patty does in "A Charlie Brown Christmas," but with a flail.

And do you want to know the worst part of this?  No, it is not that you have hereby shown that you are less qualified than weathermen to do your job.  It is that there was one channel that did in fact show Groundhog Day. 

That channel?

Country. Music. Television.

And with that, Bill Murray opened one of his six mouths and sang the song that ended the world.